Silica

Silica is made from pure flint. This mineral is found widely in nature, in animals, in vegetation. This is a very deep, long acting and slow acting remedy representing the tubercular miasm. It does not warrant frequent repetition and is reputed to produce mineral deficiency if used to excess.

Silica is reputed to remove splinters and foreign objects – literally any foreign body from anywhere in the body may be expelled. Silica may also open up old wounds if there is scarring or embedded foreign objects, so new healing can occur after the foreign body has been expelled. This may also be old infection which has not quite cured – TB scars in the lung may reopen so have a care! Silica must be used with care in cases of silicosis where old miners or stonemasons may have dust or bits of debris locked into their lungs. Also beware of pacemakers – it may be safer not to use this remedy, but take professional advice and use alternative remedies. Also beware of contraceptive coils, dental fillings and artificial hips etc! It is common place in homeopathy for the body to eject unwanted or foreign parts!
Silica is reknowned for helping in situations that have never been well since vaccinations, as these represent a foreign body, especially vaccinations of protein substances. This remedy is also a specific for people who have never been well since the suppression of sweat, especially breast cancers where underarm antiperspirant has been used extensively or where cold water or cooling the body is used to stop sweat. Also, suppression of symptoms with medications or douches, even sudden cessation of breast feeding – all suppressions in silica types can quickly lead to serious complaints. Never use silica to stop breast milk in weaning.
Silica types are small, thin, pale, delicate, refined but not haughty people with clear skin and fine hair which may lack colour or hang lankly or fall easily. They can be very obstinate with no give at all, but with not enough energy to insist, fixed, unbending and headstrong, nervous, oversensitive, shy and timid and lacking in grit. They learn to conserve their energy for essentials and will not deal with irrellevances and they may fear that their mind will not hold up so they can appear submissive on the surface, but deep down they will never give up. They may worry about getting things right and become sleepless from apprehension. They may suffer from lack of confidence even terror of failure, but once they start they tend to do well, but they tire out and mentally they can go blank. They can be clairvoyant, even pathologically so at times. They can display great courage and capacity for work, and they may well push themselves and not be stopped by lack of stamina but by weakness. Alternatively they may be averse to work due to exhaustion. They may be weepy but never cuddly. They are intellectual and are hard working and conscientious but may have no stamina physically or mentally, they are yielding and submissive due to the need to conserve energy, they can suffer from brain fag. They can be aesthetic and sensitive, to music, restless, fidgety, never totally relaxed, they can start from noise, have anticipatory fears, fears of pins, of injections, of needles, or sharp objects. They are easy in contact with others and appear mild and reserved. They are gentle and polite up to a point, but if pushed they will be obstinate, peevish and difficult.
Silica types are chilly and very sweaty, profuse around the head, armpits and feet, which can be cold and offensive and can rot socks. They may suffer from a sensation of a hair on the tongue. They may suffer from sharp, splinter like pains, swollen glands, hard glands, infected glands, abscess in glands, chains of infected glands, poor skin, poor nails with white spots indicating poor nutrition, softening and caries of bone due to malnutrition, erosion of cartilege, problems with mucous membranes, their teeth may seem translucent with slow dentition, deficient enamel, early decay, sensitive teeth and chronic problems with teeth resulting in suppuration of gums. They may suffer from scar tissue. They can suffer from thick yellow catarrhal discharges with thick nasal crusts, loss of smell, nose bleeds, ulceration and bone loss in nose, cracks in corners of nose and mouth, peeling of lips. Ears suffer under this remedy with infections, aches, perforations, deafness, noises, otitis media, eustachian tube dysfunction, glue ear, deafness and allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. Silica types can suffer from genito urinary catarrh, urinary tract infections with pus in the urine, kidney stones and kidney complaints leading to impotence.

Silica is too slow a remedy to be indicated in acute illness, so it is seldom useful for throat infections, but it is efficatious if someone suffers from recurrent throat infections or a tendency for acutes to settle into the throat or onto the chest. Silica often represents the chronic overall picture here.
This remedy is used to treat abscesses, especially recurrent abscesses, boils, carbuncles, wounds that are infected or won’t heal, lumps, nodules, cysts, fibroids, warty growths, moist eruptions, pimples and pustules. In acute suppuration silica may resemble mercury to which it is inimicable, so this is why hepar sulph is given in between these two remedies in a sequence to speed up the healing of abscess formation. Silica is a specific remedy for ailments of stone cutters or those who work in dusty environments such as miners, builders, asbestos exposure with the resulting bad chests. This remedy is also used to treat fissures and fistulas.

Silica has a *keynote of a bashful stool which will not expel and then retreats back up the anus. They can suffer from constipation, especially before and during the menses. They suffer from nausea and headaches which are not necessarily acute, but have a tendency to be chronic and recurring, which start at the back of the neck and travels up and over the head to settle behind the right eye and better from warm wrapping. These headaches are often brought on by drafts and by chill.
Chronically, silica is used to treat epilepsy which may have onset after vaccination, after suppression, from overstrain or overwork, and is worse at the new or full moon.
Silica children may be undersized and look undernourished and suffer from assimilation problems and failure to thrive. Rickets is a possibility. They may have large heads with open fontanelles and bodies which are too long and too thin with big bellies and sunken chests with arrested development and emaciation. Babies may suffer in the womb if mum had chronic diarrhoea in pregnancy and be born with malnutrition. Babies may vomit breast milk. Silica children may cry when spoken to kindly and be bashful especially with new people. Well silica children are charming, cute, lively but always delicate with great intelligence. However, they are perfect little horrors when crossed and will fly into tempers, yell, shriek, kick, show stubborn sense of reason – you will be able to reason with them and they may understand immediately and change their behaviour. There is a danger here of mental suppression as the child strives to come into line with expected behaviours which they will understand – but watch for miserable cold kids with icy feet who are listless and get sat upon easily by others and who cry when spoken to and do not want to be noticed.
They are worse from drafts (even if they are unaware of them at the time), chill, damp, suppression, vaccination, new or full moon, overwork, overstrain, warm stuffy rooms*, cold dry weather*, cold damp weather, getting wet, bathing, warm food, milk*, fat*
They are better from pressure, profuse urination, warmth*, warm wrapping, cold dry weather*.

Nice post which Silica children may be undersized and look undernourished and suffer from assimilation problems and failure to thrive. Rickets is a possibility. They may have large heads with open fontanelles and bodies which are too long and too thin with big bellies and sunken chests with arrested development and emaciation. Thanks a lot for posting this article.

I am getting over pneumonia caused by aspiration . I was having teeth veneers ground off in the dentist when i began sneezing violently. There followed an incredibly heavy cold or so I thought. Two weeks later I had pneumonia. The body was trying to expel the foreign material from the lung by making me sneeze and creating mucus. Now I have an awful feeling in my throat and hard bits of mucus are being coughed up every two or three days. I hope silica will stop a sharp bit of plastic debris from embedding itself in the wall of my lung.